A Hebrew grammar compiled from some of the best authorities

Cambridge: printed at the University Press by Hilliard and Metcalf, 1817. First edition, 8vo, pp. xv, [1], 86; a rubbed but sound and clean copy in original calf-backed marbled paper-covered boards. Willard's father and grandfather were both presidents of Harvard. For twenty-four years he was Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages at Harvard, and in later years a dedicated public servant serving as both state senator and mayor of Cambridge. In his preface Willard argues for his book citing the great expense to which students of theology must go to procure suitable Hebrew grammars. But surely he was not in ignorance of Sewall's (1802, 1806, 1812), Smith's (1803, 1810.), Stuart's (1813), and Carvalho's (1815) grammars, all but the last printed in either Cambridge or Boston to meet the Harvard demand. Ironically, this copy bears a 1819 ownership inscription of Samuel B. Mead of Yale.